Well, cluck, cluck. I turned “chicken” and started the air-conditioner.

It was just so hot and humid in here I succumbed to the discomfort of the heat, and it’s taken all night to cool down to a comfortable level.

So right now in my all-purpose room (office, laundry and spare bedroom) six things are going all at once, the washer, the dryer, the computer, the air conditioner, the lights and the ceiling fan. Besides all that, there’s a phone on my desk and a printer.

What’s kind of nice is I can slide back in my little rolling chair and look through the hallway door to the south window in my living room and see dancing maple branches. If I lean back far enough, I can see through the narrow opening in the drapes on my living room window and see vehicles streak by, so I’m never alone.

Oh yes, the television is going in there. I had to tear myself away from the Zimmerman trial.

I’ve never watched much daytime television, and I don’t wish to get hooked on it, but it’s all my friend Dee’s fault. She got me hooked on CNN with its non-stop news.

It’s gotten to be of addictive proportions. Today, however, I have not turned the tube on at all, and come to think of it, the phone hasn’t rung yet.

But have I been productive. I read the paper and did my “Cryptoquip,” a must for me to start my day, another addiction, this of my own contrivance. I leave the crossword puzzle on the comic page until evening usually. I can justify doing them as I tell myself they may help preserve the linguistic portion of my brain.

As I’ve been hitting this computer keyboard, the washing machine cycle has continued, sometimes shaking my desk and making me leery that it might cause the text to disappear into cyberspace forever.

I look up and see the whirl of the ceiling fan and feel the moving air it stirs. I can see its reflection on a laminated article on the bulletin board in front of me. My teeth could almost chatter with the washer whirling beside me and the fan above me. Oh, oh, the washer just stopped spinning and the cycle is over. I must transfer that load to the dryer on top and re-load the washer.

Back to the brain work

Come to think of it, I impulsively sat down at this tyrannical computer before making my bed, bathing and getting dressed for the day. I simply would not answer the door looking like this, so I’d better print out this stuff, shut off this word processor, unload the dryer, put the load out of the washer into the dryer on top, get bathed and dressed, ready to take on the world, which might be a bit overstated.

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Some days, getting started is the hardest part. I can get distracted quite easily.

I do feel fortunate though that I can use a computer. Many people in my age bracket wouldn’t venture into the alien computerized world for anything. But I was lucky. I hadn’t had any experience with computers when I started at The Journal-Standard.

Computers are a far cry from the manual typewriter like the one on which I started my newspaper writing. I wouldn’t go back to that for anything. It was heavy and cumbersome even to pound the keys. As a result, my touch on the computer is much heavier than most people’s, especially the young kids who started out on them. That little portable typewriter is still in my attic I think.

Getting my feet wet

Years ago, back in Iowa, I’d get that little monster out every evening after the kids were settled in for the night, place it on the kitchen table and type up whatever news I had gleaned that day. I’d then run it to the post office for overnight mailing to the Ottumwa Courier.

Any breaking news the next morning I’d phone in before deadline. I’d call in any obituaries I had received from the undertakers and any fires, criminal action, serious accidents, etc. I had that job for seven or eight years, learning the reporting concept by trial and error, you might say. I’ve always been glad for that experience, as I wouldn’t have been able to handle my current job if I hadn’t.

Coincidentally, my first real assignment at The Journal-Standard was at county fair time.

I had applied for the job but hadn’t heard anything, so I thought they had passed me up. But on Friday morning, I was down on my hands and knees scrubbing my kitchen floor. The phone rang and it was none other than the J-S editor, Saul Shapiro, wondering if I could get out to the fair and get a story on the women’s part of the action.

Gulp! He’d had complaints of insufficient coverage, he said. He wanted photos, too. Gulp again. I guess it was destiny, as I told him I would.

I was scared to death, but I called the fair office and got names of the winners of the women’s divisions. I called each one of the women and asked if they would meet me out there at the fairgrounds where their work was displayed. All agreed, and all three showed up.

One was Evelyn Dameier with her canning of garden produce. Another was Diane Lohman with her sewing. She had made an awesome suit. I can’t at the moment remember who the baking contestant was. That was 31 years ago.

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Believe it or not, I saw a man carrying sophisticated camera equipment, and I got nervy and asked him if he’d take the pictures for me. He agreed and got them to the newspaper. I don’t remember how that happened. This was a Friday and was for the next morning’s paper. I was in a state of panic.

Each of the women gave me nice, crisp little quotes, and I hurried up to the Journal-Standard and was told to sit down and start typing. I did, and the next morning there it was, with the pictures of all three women with their fair entries and my little story.

Whew! I got hired and have been writing for that paper ever since. That was back in the summer of 1982. It’s been an exciting ride, and it all started at the county fair.

Harriett Gustason is a writer for The Journal-Standard. She can be reached at (815) 235-3855 or hg3855@comcast.net.

Harriett Gustason is a writer for The Journal-Standard. She can be reached at 815-235-3855 or hg3855@comcast.net.